50-year run of Pancake Day by Kiwanis Club of Rockford ends

May 22nd, 2009 at 02:17pm Georgette Braun

You won’t be filling your belly anymore with pancakes and sausages cooked up by the Kiwanis Club of Rockford every spring for the past half century.

The club has found it too much work for its smaller-sized membership, and the profits they made to donate to charities has dropped, so Pancake Day ended its reign in 2008.

Gabe Moye eats a pancake  during the annual Kiwanis Pancake Day at Rock Valley College in Rockford. (2008 Register Star photo)

In its heydey 20 or so years ago, the club raised $50,000 and served up to 20,000 people at the March single-day event, said Kiwanis Club of Rockford member Paul Werther. The past few years, about 5,000 people attended each year and the group raised about $25,000 annually for charity. The club has diminished in size from about 150 members about 20 years ago to 62 members, Werther said.

The club most recently had held the event at Rock Valley College’s gym, but it was being remodeled this year and wasn’t available. For many years prior, the Kiwanis held the event at the MetroCentre in downtown Rockford.

“The people who attended enjoyed it, and the members enjoyed it,  … but we felt it was time to look at another fundraiser,” he said.  The group still sells kettle corn at events such as On the Waterfront, the Pec Thing and the Phantom Regiment’s Show of Shows to raise money for charities.

The Kiwanis Club of Rockford also is seeking to redefine itself, he said, because young people aren’t joining clubs like they used to.

One of the rules the Kiwanis Club of Rockford is thinking about doing away with is one that says members must attend every Tuesday meeting at the Stockholm Inn. “The young people don’t have the time,” he said. “They still want to serve, but without having to attend every Tuesday meeting.”

The group also plans to focus its fundraising efforts to benefit children, he said. “It makes sense to have a focus, so we can tell the people of Rockford.”

Entry Filed under: civic clubs, pancakes